Tuesday, June 22, 2004

U.S. Senate candidate Jack Ryan pressured and tricked his then-wife [actress Jeri Ryan] into going to sex clubs with "cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling" and tried to get her to have sex in front of others, she alleged in 4-year-old court records released Monday.

Hey, at least an intern wasn't involved. God knows that makes all the difference.

More annoying than the hypocrisy is the fact that, although the charge is a third-degree felony with a range of punishment from two to 10 years in prison, we read that:
According to court documents, Matthews is to be placed on deferred adjudication for seven years.

Criminal defendants who successfully complete the terms of deferred adjudication avoid final conviction, but the fact that they were charged remains a part of their record.

So ... he doesn't even get convicted, is that it? Yessir, the GOP -- the law and order party. Does it get any funnier than this?

Thursday, June 10, 2004

From this article, we have the jaw-dropping excerpt describing one Sean Baker, who got the tar beaten out of him while he was just posing as an uncooperative detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba:

... Mr. Baker, 37, a former member of the 438th Military Police Company, said he played the role of an uncooperative prisoner and was beaten so badly by four American soldiers that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures. He said the soldiers only stopped beating him when they realized he might be American.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

You want semantics? I'll give you semantics.

It's amusing to see Republicans, having had conniptions over Bill Clinton's "It all depends on the definition of the word 'is'", taking semantic distortions to whole new heights, a good example being the current controversy over whether the detainees at Abu Ghraib were really "tortured".

Naturally, some are saying, well, it's not really, you know, "torture" per se -- just, um, well, mistreatment, with a little abuse thrown in for good measure. But not "torture". No way, not that.

And in a June 8 article in the New York Times (new motto: "The worst newspaper ever."), available here, we have more semantic tap-dancing:

"If you walked down through the wing of the prison where they were being held, they would have them strip down naked. Sometimes they would stand on boxes and would hold their arms out. That happened almost every night - having them naked. I wouldn't say it's abuse. It's definitely degrading to them."

Ah, so it's not even abuse, just degrading. If you close your eyes, you can just see these people, poring over their thesauruses.

When they start quibbling over the definition of the word "is", you'll know things have reached rock bottom.